Short List
CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK
RAMBLING MAN
PHILIP GUSTON: McKee, 745 Fifth Ave., at 57th
St. 212-688-5951. Opens Nov. 5. DAVID HOCK-
NEV: Pace Wildenstein, 32 E. 57th St. 212-421-
3292. Through Dec. 24. GERHARD RICHTER: Mar-
ian Goodman, 24 W. 57th St. 212-977-7160. Opens
Nov. 7. EGON SCHIELE: Galerie St. Etienne, 24
W. 57th St. 212-245-6734. Through Jan. 23. TOM
WESSELMANN: Haunch of Venison, 1230 Avenue
of the Americas, at 49th St. 212-259-0000. Opens
Nov. 6.
"Are you staying or going?"
That question, put to the
brooding, itinerant AIdo
(Steve Cochran), resounds
through Michelangelo
Antonioni's 1957 film "II
Grido," which screens at BAM
on Nov. 9. It remains one of
his least recognized films but
GALLERIES-CHELSEA
PAUL CHAN
The reliably arcane Chan laces sexual frenzy with
heady lucubration in work inspired (if that's the
word) by the Marquis de Sade. Projected animations
alternate between jittery silhouettes of figures in or-
giastic action and drifting abstract geometries in
handsome colors. Big drawings intersperse sober al-
phabet fonts with quotations of Sadean (very) dirty
talk. The payoff, for aspirants to Chan's brand of
cool, may be the enjoyment of an antinomian will
to power, buffered by aesthetic and intellectual fi-
nesse. Less avid viewers may wonder at so much
tacit reverence for a creep. Through Dec. 5. (Greene
Naftali, 508 W. 26th St. 212-463-7770.)
HOPE GANGLOFF
This young drawing whiz shows large paintings of
pretty, languid friends that are mannered and feel
trendy, pleasantly. They conflate lapidary facture à la
Gustav Klimt and the everyday eros of Elizabeth Pey-
ton, with a dash of Neue Sachlichkeit. Pale-fleshed
lads and lasses project second-nature chic, just slightly
decadent, in modest circumstances. One subject is a
plainly overqualified waitress with a dainty tattoo,
lurching to grab a bottle of Tabasco sauce. A clam-
orous, gravity-free still-life celebrates a world emblem-
atized by beer, soda, and wine bottles; fancy shoes
and umbrellas; containers of Chinese food, salt, and
matches; and what looks like a Geiger counter. Through
Nov. 25. (Inglett, 522 W. 24th St. 212-647-9111.)
JUSTINE KURLAND
Kurland, who has always taken pictures of people
adrift in the American wilderness, devotes this ter-
rific show to cross-country trains and the free spir-
its who hitch rides on them. Many of her landscapes
recall the West as the pioneering photographers saw
it: awe-inspiringly vast and just plain beautiful. But
she calls her pictures "portals into the realm of rail-
road folklore," because she's also documented the
subculture that's sprung up around the trains-gray-
bearded hobos, young drifters, and her own little
boy, obsessed with the endless line of freight cars in
the distance. Kurland understands the American im-
pulse to light out for the country, and her pictures
capture both its romance and its tough reality.
Through Nov. 14. (Mitchell-Innes & Nash, 534
W. 26th St. 212-744-7400.)
JACK PIERSON
Repetition has leached Pierson's salvaged junk sign-
age-a romance with American desuetude-of its
once poetic charisma. Now each new Pierson evokes
mainly old Piersons. Apparently conscious of the
problem, the artist goes all out for formal elegance
in a show titled "Abstracts." Suavely composed found
sign parts make for gravely monumental reliefs and
sculpture, begging admittance to museums and other
ceremonial spaces. Pierson's brand of vernacular
beauty proves to have legs. Through Nov. 14. (Cheim
& Read, 547 W. 25th St. 212-242-7727.)
MATTHEW RITCHIE
Ritchie's former science-y espousals of the cosmo-
logical sublime, with diagrams of the big bang which
invited and defeated comprehension, have given way
to sheer entertainment value, in mind-blown, seduc-
tive paintings, sculptures, and a projected video an-
imation. A huge steel sculpture and a vast wall paint-
ing, which frames the asymmetrical video, are of
hyper-complex, crazed-doily design. The aureate,
fine-grained moving images, enhanced with avant-
garde-ish music and with voices reciting texts that
range from "Paradise Lost" to baseball commentary,
represent abstractly crashing seas, blizzarding feath-
III
l'
I '
I I
I
I
p
II
II
'
'
'I'
I.,
,I., ,; L
Ã I t l
. I
II'
I 111
I II 1
,
.\ .
":'-.. ::::;.: II. ;
also one of his most beautiful,
and certainly the saddest.
The beauty lies not in places
or possessions, for it is the
workingman's life, steeped
in fog and ankle-deep mud,
on the flatlands of the Po,
that Antonioni investigates
here; people embrace against
a pile of dug earth, not amid
the cushioned trappings of
the bourgeoisie. AIdo takes
his young daughter, leaving
behind her mother (Alida
Valii), and travels in search
of employment, or peace
of mind; he finds little of
either, relying instead on the
brief passions ignited by an
old flame (Betsy Blair), the
owner of a gas station (the
splendidly named Dorian
Gray), and a prostitute (Lyn
Shaw) who ekes out her
existence in a leaking shack.
The movie is often viewed
as a bridge between the
director's livelier early films
and his coolly formal later
ones, but it stands, lyrical and
forlorn, on its own.
-Anthony Lane
ers, and other agreeable catastrophes. What's it all
about? Who cares? Through Dec. 2. (Rosen, 525
W. 24th St. 212-627-6000.)
BILL VIOLA
Fans of Viola's symbolism-besotted, humor-free vid-
eos will find lots to love among the many moni-
tors and installations arrayed here, displaying works
old and recent. For his chief new trick, in a series
called "Transfigurations," Viola shoots people, clothed
or not, dimly approaching what turns out to be a
thick curtain of falling water. They emerge, duly
soaked, from grainy analog black -and-white into
high-def color and ape profound-make that
"profound" -emotions, none of which admit the
fun or annoyance of having been splooshed. Pass the
soap. Through Dec. 19. (James Cohan, 533 W. 26th
St. 212-714-9500.)
Short List
ANDREA BOWERS: Kreps, 525 W. 22nd St. 212-
741-8849. Through Dec. 5. EMILIE CLARK: Mor-
gan Lehman, 317 Tenth Ave., at 28th St. 212-
268-6699. Through Nov. 14. CARROLL DUNHAM:
Gladstone, 515 W. 24th St. 212-206-9300.
Through Dec. 5. NICOLE EISENMAN: Koenig,
545 W. 23rd St. 212-334-9255. Through Dec. 23.
PETER FISCHLI & DAVID WEISS: Marks, 522
W. 22nd St. 212-243-0200. Through Jan. 16. DAN
FLAVIN: Zwirner, 533 W. 19th St. 212-727-2070.
Opens Nov. 5. W A VNE GONZALES: Cooper, 521
W. 21st St. 212-255-1105. Through Dec. 18.
DA VID HOCKNEV: Pace Wildenstein, 534 W. 25th
St. 212-929-7000. Through Dec. 24. EMIL V JACIR:
Alexander and Bonin, 132 Tenth Ave., at 18th
St. 212-367-7474. Through Nov. 28. MICHAEL
JOO: Kern, 532 W. 20th St. 212-367-9663.
Through Dec. 5. SISTER CORIY A KENT: Feuer,
530 W. 24th St. 212-989-7700. Through Dec. 5.
MARK MANDERS: Bonakdar, 521 W. 21st St. 212-
414-4144. Through Dec. 19. SARAH MORRIS:
Petzel, 537 W. 22nd St. 212-680-9467. Through
Dec. 5. W ALiD RAAD: Cooper, 534 W. 21st St.
212-255-1105. Opens Nov. 6. PETER SACKS:
Rodgers/9W, 529 W. 20th St. 212-414-9810.
Through Dec. 12. RICHARD SERRA: Gagosian,
522 W. 21st St. 212-741-1717. Through Dec. 23.
SIMON STARLING: Kaplan, 525 W. 21st St. 212-
645-7335. Through Dec. 19. "ON TOP OF THE
WHALE": Algus, 511 W. 25th St. 212-242-6242.
Through Dec. 5.
GALLERIES-DOWNTOWN
NEIL WINOKUR
Winokur's portraits of artists and friends, made in
the eighties, look even better in retrospect. Forty of
the garisWy colored photographs are here, many on
view for the first time. Among the throng are Cindy
Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Philip Glass, Mary Boone,
and Andy Warhol, most of whom pose before neon-
bright backdrops, facing forward, passport-picture
style. The results are far from flattering but irresist-
ible even when the subject isn't famous. Like Thomas
Ruff's eighties portraits (most of which Winokur's
predate), they have a matter-of-fact documentary qual-
ity that avoids any pretense of psychological depth
while allowing us to absorb every ravishing (or off-
putting) detail of the surface. Through Nov. 25. (Bor-
den, 560 Broadway, at Prince St. 212-431-0166.)
Short List
BARRV x BALL: Salon 94 Freemans, 1 Freeman
Alley. 212-529-7400. Through Dec. 12. BROCK
ENRIGHT: Beauchene, 21 Orchard St. 212-375-
8043. Through Nov. 29. R. M. FISCHER: K.S.
Art, 73 Leonard St. 212-219-9918. Through Dec.
19. JONAS MEKAS: Fuentes, 35 St. James PI.
212-577-1201. Through Nov. 25. LAURA OWENS:
Brown, 620 Greenwich St. 212-627-5258. Through
Nov. 21. ERIN SHI RREFF: Cooley, 34 Orchard 8
St. 212-680-0564. Through Dec. 20. "STUART
SHERMAN: NOTHING UP MV SLEEVE": Partic-
ipant, Inc., 253 E. Houston St. 212-254-4334.
Opens Nov. 8. Q